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> On the other hand, the people who design Facebook or mobile games to be maximally addicting definitely understand something about how their software is affect

> On the other hand, the people who design Facebook or mobile games to be maximally addicting definitely understand something about how their software is affecting society. This is an interesting point, a whole lot of companies do actually hire soft-sciences talent specifically for that purpose, has been quite common in the gaming sector for years now (Blizzard, Valve, Bungie, just from the top of my head).

mywittyname 8y ago
This point backs up the statement of ~this parent~ rossdavidh's reply: programmers and engineers are woefully unequipped to perform any significant social science research. If they were, then tech companies would have little to no need to hire research psychologists or human factors specialists. They'd instead hire programmers and engineers that specialize in getting people addicted to technology.
- rosser 8y ago
  So because the employer hires specialists in weaponizing people's brains against them (via manipulating addiction psychology, &c), the programmer is somehow off the hook for implementing things that he now knows to be designed thusly, on the basis that it's the work-product of those specialists? I'm reminded of the Tom Lehrer lyric: Once the rockets are up Who cares where they come down That's not my department Says Wernher von Braun
  - mywittyname 8y ago
    You're counter-argument is disingenuous, almost to the point of willful ignorance. It's obvious that a missile can be used to send bombs across the world just as well as it can be used to send satellites into space. Minecraft seems like a great form of entertainment that can be used as an educational tool. The fact that it might also be destructive to the development of children is non-obvious and takes some expertise outside the domain of software engineering to uncover.
    - rosser 8y ago
      I wasn't talking about Minecraft, necessarily. But consider, for example, Zynga, or any of the makers of pay-to-play games that are designed with a thorough understanding of addiction psychology in mind. You didn't design the mechanism, but you know what it does. Are your hands clean if you write that code?

mywittyname 8y ago

This point backs up the statement of ~this parent~ rossdavidh's reply: programmers and engineers are woefully unequipped to perform any significant social science research. If they were, then tech companies would have little to no need to hire research psychologists or human factors specialists. They'd instead hire programmers and engineers that specialize in getting people addicted to technology.

rosser 8y ago
So because the employer hires specialists in weaponizing people's brains against them (via manipulating addiction psychology, &c), the programmer is somehow off the hook for implementing things that he now knows to be designed thusly, on the basis that it's the work-product of those specialists? I'm reminded of the Tom Lehrer lyric: Once the rockets are up Who cares where they come down That's not my department Says Wernher von Braun
- mywittyname 8y ago
  You're counter-argument is disingenuous, almost to the point of willful ignorance. It's obvious that a missile can be used to send bombs across the world just as well as it can be used to send satellites into space. Minecraft seems like a great form of entertainment that can be used as an educational tool. The fact that it might also be destructive to the development of children is non-obvious and takes some expertise outside the domain of software engineering to uncover.
  - rosser 8y ago
    I wasn't talking about Minecraft, necessarily. But consider, for example, Zynga, or any of the makers of pay-to-play games that are designed with a thorough understanding of addiction psychology in mind. You didn't design the mechanism, but you know what it does. Are your hands clean if you write that code?